The White House has authorized an expansion of the C.I.A.’s drone program in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas. The news comes after Philip Alston, the UN human rights investigator, questioned in late October the US use of drones, suggesting it could constitute a breach of international law. Read more

Philip Alston, the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, has voiced concern over the use of unmanned drones by the U.S. to target militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The independent human rights expert said such a practice will be regarded as a breach of international law unless Washington can demonstrate that the appropriate precautions and accountability mechanisms are in place. Read more

Administrative detention has been a contentious topic for international lawyers since its invocation by governments claiming that it is a principal tool in the often-lawless global ‘War on Terror’. Despite the popularity that this mechanism has earned amongst a growing number of states, principally those participating in the ‘War on Terror’, it has been neglected that the use of preemptive detention is illegal when used arbitrarily and disproportionately in a manner that does not allow for any remedy at all to be sought against this egregious violation of the fundamental human right not to be subjected to arbitrary deprivation of liberty. [...]

The term “lawfare” is increasingly used to characterize the pervasive role of law in the conduct of war, but there is nothing new about the concept. Law has always played a role in war, requiring that a pragmatic balance be struck between the necessities of war and the need to protect the innocent. The significance of this balance between military necessity and humane treatment under the law has never been more central to the credibility of U.S. military operations than it is today. The real question raised today is whether “lawfare” will come to define a fundamental distortion of this historic balance. Read more

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) urged the UN Human Rights Council as it opened its 12th session in Geneva on 14 September 2009 to establish a new expert mandate to improve protection of human rights of individuals in armed conflicts and generally in any crisis situations. The ICJ requested the Council to harness protection of judges and lawyers from violence and intimidation inflicted on them for their professional functions. It also sought accountability for human rights violations and international crimes committed by the Israeli Army, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups during the recent war in Gaza. Read more

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) today welcomed the decision of United States Attorney General Eric Holder to mandate Assistant US Attorney John Durham to “conduct a preliminary review into whether [US] laws were violated in connection with the interrogation of specific detainees at overseas locations.”

The Attorney General’s initiative marks a first step towards full disclosure of and accountability for unlawful US practices concerning the treatment of detainees secretly held by the CIA as part of the Bush administration’s counter-terrorism strategy. Those practices included serious human rights violations amounting to crimes under international law.

The ICJ nonetheless is deeply concerned by the statement of the Attorney General that “the Department of Justice will not prosecute anyone who acted in good faith and within the scope of the legal guidance given by the Office of Legal Counsel regarding the interrogation of detainees.” Read more

The American Association for the International Commission of Jurists (AAICJ), an affiliated organization of the ICJ in Geneva, is an organization of legal professionals dedicated to the promotion of the Rule of Law and an Independent Judiciary in furtherance of improving human rights standards at home and abroad.